House construction - Procedure

Or do you simply go and say you have x-y square meters of floor space, want xy living space in style Z, and then they get started?

It certainly depends somewhat on the architect. In our case, it went roughly like this: 1. Analyze the plot and surroundings (Where are the neighbors? What are the views like? How could you consider the cardinal directions? What does the development plan specify? ...) 2. Discuss ideas about future life in the house (Who will live in the house? What are the habits? What style do you like? Very open design? Which rooms do you want? ...) 3. Discuss approximate living space size and budget 4. Architect creates the first draft and ideally a few perspective sketches so you’re not just looking at a floor plan. 5. The first draft is discussed, from which a second draft is developed and finally a third draft. 6. Based on the satisfactory draft, the building permit planning is carried out. In my view, you should think about your wishes and needs and not think in terms of solutions. That is what the architect is for. The more you specify to the architect, the less freedom he has to harmonize your wishes in an individual design. Anyone who decides from the outset on a catalog house will, of course, never know what architectural refinements they missed. Without an architect, we would have chosen an almost standard 1.5-story house with a gable roof and are now very glad we didn’t do that.

Thank you very much. This already helps us a lot to minimize the "Anfängerfehler".

I can only agree. We started the experience of building with the idea of a "Schwedenhaus." When it became clear that this was definitely impossible on our plot, we have now ended up with a great bungalow with a wooden facade. Without an architect, we would never have thought in this direction, and his experience also massively helped during the approval process.

We would also very much like to build a bungalow, so everything on one level, but the plot does not allow for that. We will also not have a garden, but we don’t want one anyway. There is about 3 meters of space all around the current house... That’s it. You can sit nicely in front of it there. The old house will be demolished. The old cellar, where you have to go down bent over with a clay floor, will be leveled. On top of that, the foundation slab and the new little house will be built. That is the plan at the moment. Our neighbor has a meadow about 20x10 meters behind his parking lot, which we are allowed to use if we mow it. Any children can play there a bit. The neighbor has no use for it anymore since his mother passed away. That used to be her garden.

A proper root cellar? I would definitely consider whether it could be preserved. Nowhere else can you store potatoes, carrots, etc. better. Or even wine. Maybe with an entrance from outside?

Yes, it's totally an old earth cellar. There are still wooden racks for the potatoes. But you really have to bend down, bend down deep ... The house connection for the house is currently in there too ... Better ask the architect what he thinks. There are also spiders down there hehe ...